Dry Abrasion Evaluation of Geotextiles with Different Test Standards

Abrasion tests have been developed primarily for geotextiles and their main use has been with nonwoven geotextiles. However, very little or no information exists for woven geotextiles, even worse if they are made of polypropylene or polyester, polymers commonly used in their manufacture. In our R&D Laboratory facilities, this property has been investigated since its application is important to determine the durability of structures made with these Geosynthetics. Abrasion in geotextiles has been questioned due to its poor practical applicability and to which physical model the principle of the test refers. Although it was initially oriented to railways or pavements, currently the need is much greater. Nowadays woven geotextiles are used to confine soil as bags or as geotextile tubes, also in containment structures with the face exposed to wind and fine particles, in each case they generate loss of mass and finally reduction of resistance. This paper presents tests using ASTM D4886 and ISO 13427 standards and compares abrasion on nonwoven and woven geotextiles to understand the degree of resistance reduction. The results are compared over long laboratory periods to even be able to make some kind of approximation of this phenomenon for long site periods of time. The results are evaluated in search of an analytical expression that allows us to know the degree of resistance impairment and whether this can be associated with a real physical effect that can serve as a basis for a future methodology.